Halászlé

Ingredients

• 1 kg carp fillets, skin on, cut into thick pieces
• 700 g carp heads, bones, fins and trimmings
• 500 g onions, finely chopped
• 3 tbsp sweet Hungarian paprika
• 1 tsp hot paprika or 1 hot cherry pepper
• 1 ripe tomato, quartered
• 1 green pointed pepper, sliced
• 1.5 litres cold water
• 2 tsp salt, plus more for the fish
• 2 tbsp lard

Before you cook

• Cut the carp fillets into thick pieces about 5 cm wide and salt them lightly.
• Leave the salted fillets in the fridge for 30 minutes while you make the broth.
• Chop the onions finely, because they must dissolve into the soup.
• Rinse the heads and trimmings well and pull out the gills, which turn the broth bitter.

Steps

1. Melt the lard in a wide heavy pot over medium heat.
2. Cook the chopped onions in the lard for 15 minutes, stirring, until they are completely soft and pale gold.
3. Add the fish heads and trimmings, the quartered tomato and the sliced green pepper.
4. Pour in 1.5 litres of cold water and add the two teaspoons of salt.
5. Bring the pot to a boil, then lower it to a steady simmer and cook for 45 minutes.
6. Take the pot off the heat and let it stand for 10 minutes.
7. Pass the whole contents through a food mill or push them through a coarse sieve, working the solids hard so all the onion and fish goes through.
8. Discard the bones left in the sieve and return the strained broth to the clean pot.
9. Bring the broth back to a bare simmer, then pull it off the heat.
10. Stir in the sweet paprika and the hot paprika away from the heat, because boiling paprika turns bitter.
11. Return the pot to a low heat and lower in the salted fillets in a single layer.
12. Simmer the fish for 12 minutes without ever stirring, swirling the pot by its handles instead if you need to move things.
13. Taste the broth and add salt until the paprika flavour comes forward.
14. Ladle the soup into deep bowls, giving each one a good piece of fish, and serve with white bread.